"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Monday, September 22, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is cracking down on
American companies that seek to reincorporate overseas to avoid paying
U.S. taxes.In a so-called "tax inversion," a U.S. business merges with or is
acquired by a foreign company in a country with a lower tax rate.

The Treasury Department says it's putting forward regulations that
will make inversions less lucrative by barring some techniques companies
use to defer their taxes. It's also making it harder for companies to
pursue an inversion by tightening the requirement that the company's
former owners own less than 80 percent of the new company.Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says the steps will ensure that it's no
longer financially beneficial for companies to use that tactic.The new measures will take effect immediately.

Google plans to officially cut ties with the conservative American
Legislative Exchange Council, the company's chairman announced Monday,
declaring that the group is "literally lying about climate change" and
so Google can no longer be associated with it.The Internet giant would be the second major technology to part ways with ALEC in the last two months. Microsoft announced
in August that it would end its relationship with ALEC, and that
decision was linked to Microsoft's support for renewable energy
projects."The facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone
understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it
are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the
world a much worse place," Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told
NPR's Diane Rehm in explaining the decision. "And so we should not be
aligned with such people -- they're just, they're just literally lying."

He would not specify when Google would formally disconnect from ALEC.
Microsoft and Google had been members of the group's communications and
technology task force, according to CNET.Other major corporations including Coca-Cola, General Motors, Bank of
America, and Proctor & Gamble have severed ties with ALEC in recent
years. National Journal reported that more than 50 liberal groups had urged Google in a letter sent earlier this month to disavow the group.ALEC, founded in the 1970s, gained renewed national attention after
Republicans won major victories in state governments in 2010 and the
group's signature pieces of model legislation were introduced in
statehouses nationwide. It was described
by Bob Edgar, the president of the liberal advocacy group Common Cause,
as "proof positive of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into
our democratic processes."One of its recent initiatives, according to the Huffington Post, has been model legislation that would require a "balanced" teaching of climate science.